Where He Came From
by AzaleaRill
Summary: Magic wasn't worked out of thin air; Kendra had to get the body somewhere.
1. Where he came from

Magic wasn't worked out of thin air; Kendra had to get the body somewhere.

Now that Kyle was done with it, Kendra should have been as well.

She stood in the doorway of ICU with the DNR form in one hand and a pen in the other, a looming blank line waiting for her signature.

She'd claimed to be his only relative, a distant cousin. No one questioned her. They seemed more relieved than anything to have someone responsible for the tattooed wayfarer that had ended up in their ER after a motorcycle accident and critical head trauma. They said the coma was irreversible, there was no hope. All Kendra had to do was sign and they would turn off the machines and he wouldn't be anyone's problem anymore.

But she had seen that body animated, had seen that face hold a dozen emotions. With what she knew of the "dark arts", how could she consign a soul that had contributed to saving another to its final rest when there was so much untapped potential there? You couldn't give one man the body of another and not expect something of the original owner's spirit to shine through. Using the "real" Hunter to make Kyle change his ways had been a complete gamble.

Kendra almost wished she hadn't won the game.

The scratch of the pen seemed loud and harsh in the quiet where only the soft sounds of monitors and the sigh of bottled air intruded. As soon as the doctor had seen the movement of her signed confirmation, he moved about shutting down life-support and the room seemed to fall into a literal deathly silence.

The last thing the doctor did was have a nurse help him remove the tube running down Hunter's throat. They lifted him gently and tilted his head back, extracting the length of medical plastic that had primarily kept him alive thus far. The nurse cleaned blood flecked saliva from his face as they lay him back against the pillows, then turned with pen poised as they all three began to watch a monitor, waiting for a green flat line.

But "Time of death" would have to remain blank today.

The sharp little peaks on the heart monitor continued their steady progress across the screen. The doctor placed his stethoscope on Hunter's chest amidst the tangled vines of his strange tattoos.

"Son-of-a-bitch is breathing on his own," the young doctor said incredulously.

Kendra let escape a tiny smile.

She didn't plan on staying that long; wanted to leave and let fate have its way. But she thought she'd just sit by for a while, read a bit...aloud it turned out. Before long, she'd been there twelve hours and finished reading him a volume of John Keats poetry.

Nothing had changed.

The nurses had come and gone as had the doctor. He'd finally introduced himself to her as Dr. Miles Crest and had taken it upon himself to warn her that death by deprivation was an extremely slow process. Kendra had a feeling he wanted to "poke and prod" Hunter a bit and didn't want her in the room. With a dance of her fingers, Kendra mischievously spelled out "kick me" on the back of his lab coat as he went out.

Resting her forehead on her arm where it lay on the chair, she asked(for no other reason than to hear herself): "Hunter, do you want to go home with me?"

"...yeah."

Kendra sat up completely straight. It had just been a whisper of sound, more of a raspy breath than any real word.

A week later, Miles Crest was waiting when Kendra exited the hospital offices, an overload of paperwork on Hunter in her hands.

"You know, I can get your address, unethical as that would be," he said offhandedly while lighting a cigarette.

"You should know better," Kendra said, pointing emphatically. The cigarette burned rapidly down to the butt. Miles yelped as it scorched his fingers, not sure even at that moment if she was talking about smoking or snooping.

"You could help people, you know," he mumbled, swiping at the ashes on his leather coat. "You woke him up and he wasn't supposed to wake up."

"First of all," Kendra said, cocking her head to one side in a characteristic gesture, her dark mascara emphasizing the defiance in her eyes. "First of all, I didn't wake him up. Maybe it was that I was there, you know, someone to care. I don't know. Second of all, are you going to make me quote The Genie?"

It was Miles' turn to make a confused gesture. "What?"

Kendra sighed. "The Genie, from Aladdin? 'Rule #1. I can't kill anybody,' and I wouldn't anyway. 'Rule #2. I can't make anybody fall in love with anybody else,'"

 _except by body switching, outside influence, teaching them the error of their ways_ Kendra thought to herself.

"'Rule #3. I can't bring people back from the dead' and if you consider that Hunter was basically dead… not my doing that he woke up."

"Ok, ok," Miles interrupted, seemingly disbelieving he was even having this conversation. "So how is he? What's he do?"

Kendra shrugged. "He's like a sweet old cat. Sits in the sun a lot and watches the birds."

"Can I talk to him?" Miles asked, almost comically pleading.

Kendra smiled sweetly. "No."

She clipped smartly past him in her too high heals, then suddenly stopped and turned.

"Take care of these for me, will you?" She said shoving all the papers into his hands.

Miles looked down and blinked hard. He was sure when she had been holding them, they were mostly blank spaces. Now they were completely filled out.


	2. Where he stayed

When the knock at her door finally came, what Kendra didn't expect were the roses.

"A bribe not to report you to the hospital ethics board?" She asked, not taking the proffered flowers but leaving the door open for him to enter.

"Legally I could argue the particulars of having a photographic memory," Miles said. "Just looking at a piece of paper with certain information on it can have unintended consequences." He followed her into the apartment and looked for a place to lay the bouquet.

Kendra watched his gaze sweep the room. "Surprised at the lack of pentagrams and crystal balls?" She asked with sweet sarcasm. Retrieving a modest vase from an alcove, she deposited the roses in it. "Want to see if my cauldron is brewing in the kitchen?"

"I hear laserwort tea is good for the thyroid," he bantered back. "What's your take?"

A smirk was all he got for his trouble. Kendra pushed through a swinging door and let Miles decide whether or not to follow. The invitation being ambiguous, he caught the door as it swung to and stood on the threshold as she filled the vase with water from the sink. Clunking it on the counter, she pointedly ignored him as she opened the fridge to retrieve a canned drink, then turned and stepped through the open door to the balcony.

The night was beautifully mild and the whole starry city stretched out around the building. Kendra didn't even need any extra light to see the book she had been reading, so she knew it also didn't take Miles a moment to pick out the sleeping figure of a Hunter laid out on a lounge chair nearby.

"I have a pocket mirror if you want to make sure he's breathing," she said nonchalantly after Miles had been staring for a while. Kendra pretended interest in leafing through a fashion magazine while watching him out the corner of her eye as he came to stand closer.

Pointedly avoiding the raw looking scars on his neck, Miles pressed his fingers against Hunter's pulse and counted silently. Then, unable to resist, he peeled back one of the man's eyelids and was rewarded with having his hand slapped away like it was an irritating insect. Miles jumped back in surprise at the sudden movement and Hunter rolled to his side, presenting the doctor with his back and the steady march of tattooed vines that tracked down his spine.

Kendra couldn't hold back a quiet laugh. "You'd feel the same way if someone poked you in the eye while you slept," she said as Miles tried to smooth his ruffled feathers. "Shall I see you out," she asked, pretending great interest in the page before her," or do you remember the way?"

"I have a late shift coming up anyway," Miles said to ease his escape. He stepped back through the sliding doors into the apartment and said over his shoulder as a note of departure: "You shouldn't leave these doors open, something could get in."

A moment later, Kendra stifled a smile, looked to the glowing city sky and twitched a pierced eyebrow.

Just as Miles gained the front door, an unfriendly "caw" sounded behind him. A huge raven flew out of nowhere and, seeming to summon the image of Poe's poetic bird, perched on the door lintel. It dropped a single rose from its sharp beak to the floor in front of him, eyeing Miles maniacally until he picked it up. Edging past the black avian, he opened the door and made good his escape.

* * *

A few days later, Dr. Miles Crest was doing clinic rounds. So far it had been the usual: flu, a broken arm, allergic reaction, a baby with coup. At the moment, he was examining an older man with indications of Subacute Thyroiditis and would most likely need an RAIU test to confirm before treatment began. The problem was, mention a test with the word "radioactive" in it to the lay person, especially older lay persons who were not as prone to comb the internet for information, and you often had a bigger problem on your hands than to begin with. Not only that, the treatment included beta-blockers with a litany of adverse affects associated with them and could be especially hard on seniors. Miles had no patience for explaining all these things to a poor, half-deaf man who only wanted to talk about his pack of grandchildren. He thought about turning the patient over to an intern, but the grandmotherly wife had already pinned him as a "their doctor" and would just harangue him for details no matter who was assigned to the case.

Mile entered the exam room with the man's charts and found the older couple in a joyful discussion about the fact that three of their grandchildren where staying for the summer. He almost couldn't hide a grimace at the thought of the miserable condition the grandfather would soon be in, leaving his wife to try and wrestle with the children while he would need near constant supervision himself.

Seating himself on a stool, he began to explain the diagnosis to the pair who pretty much gave him uncomprehending attention. Miles had just flipped the page up on the chart to begin the explanation of the tests they would need to run when several small, neat bundles began to rain out of the pages of the chart. There was surprised silence on all parts. Miles hesitantly reached down and retrieved a tightly packed sachet to which was attached a small tag.

" _Laserwort tea_ ," it said. _"Add to hot water, seep 3 minutes, drink once a day. Use for 1 week for most therapeutic results. If bitter, add sugar."_

* * *

A week later, it happened again. Miles was filling in on the pediatrics floor, messaging his temple at a headache that was not being helped by the continuous, painful cry of a young girl. She had been in the hospital for nearly two days with a swelling in her arm that no-one had been able to as yet explain or treat. Too young for morphine, the doctors were only left with pain medications suitable for her age _,_ none of which were very strong nor seemed to have had any affect.

Hoping to be relieved of her piteous yet highly annoying wail so that he could think, Miles fished in his pocket for a quarter or something to perhaps bribe her with for silence. Instead of a coin, his finger found a bit of unfamiliar, rough material. In trying to pull the stuff out, he was perplexed to find that a long, rainbow ribbon began to unreal from within the confines of his pocket. Unknowingly imitating an old clown routine, he pulled at the ribbon faster and more diligently, ending up with several long, tangled loops around his arm. The wailing of the child stopped and a moment later was replaced by a fit of giggling. Miles nearly hit himself in the face with the object that was, finally, attached to the end of the ridiculously long streamer and had to duck awkwardly as it came flying out of his pocket. This was haled with another bout of laughter from the small girl who had forgotten her pain in lieu of the show.

The small bracelet that clinked to the floor with a pretty sound was decorated with exotic looking beads bearing what he could only describe as runes. The little girl held out her good hand expectantly for the prize and seemed to know inherently that the jewelry was made to go on the swollen wrist of her injured arm. She laid back with a happy little sigh and fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

Miles heard later that she was discharged not long after - her ailment and recovery remained a mystery.

* * *

He knew it was time to talk to Kendra again when the water he had squirted into a paper cup from the cooler refused to be poured out. Before he could examine the curious properties of non-viscous water, a patient he had become friendly with scooped the cup out of his hand and threw the contents back in a single gulp. "Thanks man," the wheelchair bound ex-cop had said with a mischievous smile as he rolled by.

Oddly enough, his physical therapy took a turn for the better and it was predicted he would be able to walk again.

* * *

"Coffee?" the note said. It had slid out of the file that contained Hunter's medical information. Considering that all the forms in the bulky file were now blank, Miles was fairly certain Kendra had made sure he didn't just show up at her front door again.

Wending his way through racks of "get well" cards and shelves with potted plants and cheery stuffed animals, he came to the coffee shop tucked into a corner of the gift shop. Miles decided to stop being incredulous during the water episode, but the fact that Kendra was sitting there waiting for him with a hot beverage not five minutes after he read the note still made him feel like he'd walked onto an episode of "Be-witched" or some other crazy thing.

"Double espresso with a shot of soy milk?" Kendra asked as she proffered the steaming cup. Her nails were painted black and she had henna tattoos spiraling up from her fingers to her wrist.

"Oh great, you read minds too?" Miles said a bit too loudly.

"No," she said as if talking to a small child. "I asked the barista. Apparently you come down here a lot."

Miles sat heavily in a vacant chair trying to ignore the aroma of the coffee she set in front of him, then realized that paranoia would just make things weirder and took a long draught of the hot drink.

"I think we need to talk," he said, determined to figure things out.

It was now no surprise that things did not exactly go as he'd planned.


	3. Where he went

_I felt the need to re-write this part. Kendra's more like herself in this version_

* * *

What he hadn't expected to get was a date.

It had been a kind of "You've Got Mail" situation.

"You want to coincidentally meet me in Central Square tomorrow?"

"There's a café there I've been wanting to try."

"Say 8 o'clock?

* * *

Miles adjusted his shirt collar in the mirror and checked the time. He still had a good hour before going out and didn't know what to do with himself. He'd not had "free time" in recent memory – not any that hadn't involved catching up on sleep.

It was almost a relief when his phone rang.

Preparing to talk an intern through some emergency, he was surprised to hear Kendra's voice (especially since they hadn't exchanged numbers).

"Miles," she said. "Hunter is gone."

He knew I instantly what she meant. He was staring at the rose which had been blooming for weeks in a water glass on the kitchen counter. The petals were now a soft, withered wreath around the container, the stem brittle, the bare head bowed toward its lost foliage.

"I'm coming," Miles said.

* * *

They sat in one of the lounge chairs on the balcony where the last rays of the sun had left them. Miles reached over Kendra and, clinically following procedure, felt for a pulse. Despite the somewhat gruesome scars, tattoos, and strange piercings, Hunter's face was a calm landscape in death that conveyed nothing but peace.

Kendra, he felt, was more like a frightening porcelain doll. She needed, maybe even wanted to be held, but her odd nature kept you back, afraid something would break.

She sat so still in the last, dim light of the gloaming, nothing so harsh as even a whisper to break the eerie silence . Miles hesitantly touched her shoulder and she shivered slightly, dropping her steady gaze from whatever depth of middle distance she had been staring to Hunter's face. Un-twining her fingers stiffly from his hand, she kissed his cheek for a long moment, then stood under her own power and walked past Miles and into the dark apartment.

Miles took out his phone and made a quiet call, keeping his voice low and the instructions brief, then followed where Kendra had gone. He found that she had slipped, fully clothed, under the heavy dark coverlet on her bed. He sat down in the bedside chair, intending maybe to offer some lame platitudes when her hand came from beneath the covers and just settled on his arm.

And he knew that was all she wanted.

Her finger clenched a bit when quiet voices entered the apartment. Miles put his hand over hers, not feeling the tension eave her fingers until the soft sounds of movement, the slight click of metal, cloth on cloth, and murmuring voices faded out the front door.

After a while, Kendra pulled her hand back beneath the covers and seemed to disappear altogether in the muted dark. Miles sat back and thought about going. If he went now, there was a chance that he could take a look at Hunter…

Before he could complete the though, he heard some unidentifiable sound, felt a tingling like the tickle of a sneeze, and then dropped into a dark and profound sleep.

* * *

What most surprised him when he woke was that his whole body wasn't at all stiff or aching from sleeping in what looked to be a very uncomfortable and ornate antique chair.

He wasn't surprised to find empty. Empty of almost everything except the basic furniture. Predictably, the place of empty of Kendra herself as well.

Miles walked out of the building and began to trace his route home. At least, he thought he was headed home. When he found himself on the Alexandria Street pedestrian bridge that spanned the Canticle River, he really wasn't surprised. Mostly because Kendra was sitting on one of the benches looking at the view of the bay. Beside her sat an empty box made of some alabaster material Miles didn't even try to recognize. He wondered, for a humorless moment, how much metal had fallen into the river when she spread Hunter's ashes.

"Beautiful morning for a walk," Miles said as came closer to Kendra.

She blinked up at him and smiled slightly. "I thought so."

Miles nodded as if in agreement. "I'll have to get to the hospital in a couple of hours," he said. "So I need to, um, go the other way." He gestured lamely behind him.

"May I walk with you?" she asked, as if they'd just met on the bridge in passing.

"Yes, sure, of course," he said feeling like an idiot.

A couple of blocks on, mostly just to break the silence, he mentioned openings they had at the hospital for desk help, attendant's in the children's ward, part-time work since "you might need something to do," Miles said. As if Kendra, he thought, would _need_ something to do.

She nodded and smiled again, just a little. Miles had a feeling her name was already on a badge somewhere and a certain supervisor would be found to have relaxed the dress code to quite an extent. Kendra slipped her hand into his and it was as if they had been companions for a long time.

END.


End file.
